It’s been 59 years between julep sips

Exercise rider Abel Flores takes Kentucky Derby hopeful Tapiture for a morning workout in the rain at Churchill Downs Monday, April 28, 2014, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/Garry Jones)
Exercise rider Abel Flores takes Kentucky Derby hopeful Tapiture for a morning workout in the rain at Churchill Downs Monday, April 28, 2014, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/Garry Jones)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Art Sherman knows what it’s like to be at the Kentucky Derby with a brilliant colt that wins the race.

He just hasn’t done it in 59 years.

In 1955, Sherman was an 18-year-old exercise rider for Swaps, a California-bred chestnut colt who beat Nashua to wear the garland of roses on the first Saturday in May.

“I was just a kid then and just glad to be learning,” he said.

Now he’s77 and bringing his own California-bred chestnut to Churchill Downs, where California Chrome is the likely favorite.

A colt with a modest pedigree but impressive resume is traveling outside his home state for the first time. He flew Monday to Churchill Downs, where he’ll start getting used to the surface with a jog today.

“He’ll look around and know he’s at a racetrack and feel right at home,” Sherman said. “That’s the way he is.”

California Chrome has won his past four races by a combined 24¼ lengths, including the $1 million Santa Anita Derby.

“He’s the kind of horse you dream about,” Sherman said.

California Chrome finished first in the Derby points leaderboard that determines the maximum 20-horse field for the 1¼-mile race. He’s won 6 of 10 career starts and has already topped $1 million in earnings.

Pretty impressive for a colt from humble beginnings.

His mother, named Not For Love, won one race. She was purchased for $8,000 by Steve Coburn and Perry Martin, a move that prompted a trainer to call them “dumb asses” for getting involved in racing.

That motivated Coburn and Martin to name their operation DAP Racing, which stands for Dumb Ass Partners. Their silks include an image of a donkey.

“We’re everyday people,” said Coburn, a press operator at a 13-employee Nevada company that makes magnetic strips for credit cards and driver licenses. “I’m up at 4:30 every day going to work,”

Martin runs a laboratory in Sacramento, Calif., that tests high-reliability equipment, like car air bags or medical equipment, or as he says, “The kind where somebody dies if something goes wrong.”

Coburn and Martin’s partnership is based on handshake, and their wives are friends who enjoy the sport, too. The group came up with California Chrome’s name by drawing it out of a hat.

Sherman has his first Derby starter because Coburn and Martin contacted him about training their horse.

“He’s old school and he’s a regular guy,” Coburn said.“He doesn’t have a huge barn and he’s able to spend quality time with every horse he has in his barn.”

Sherman is based at Los Alamitos Racecourse in Orange County, Calif., 30 miles and a world away from Santa Anita, the mecca of racing in Southern California.

Sherman, a former jockey and track official, took out his trainer’s license in 1980. His son, Alan, assists him with California Chrome, easily the best horse that’s ever been in their barn.

“I’m very humbled to have a horse like this,” said the elder Sherman, whose personality is not unlike that of California Chrome. “He’s so easy going, laidback. Nothing seems to bother him.”

Sherman said he plans to tour California Chrome around Churchill Downs. He wants the colt to get used to the paddock, where he will be saddled Saturday, and the starting gate, where 20 fractious colts will line up.

“He gets anxious in the gate,” Sherman said. “He knows he’s got to come away from there running, so we have to school him.”

He’ll probably slip California Chrome some of his favorite horse treat - Mrs. Pasture’s Paddock Cookies, made of molasses, corn and barley.

“I’ve had some,” Coburn said. “They’re good. Tastes like a granola bar.”

Come Saturday evening, Sherman, Coburn, Perry and jockey Victor Espinoza hope to be tasting victory.

“I know there’s always a question until they’ve done it, but I really think this horse will go a mile and a quarter, no problem,” Sherman said. “He’s doing everything right.”

140th Kentucky Derby WHERE Churchill Downs, Louisville, Ky.

WHEN Saturday, Post time approximately 5:24 p.m. Central TV NBC

Sports, Pages 17 on 04/29/2014

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